Somewhere in one of the boxes of photos under my bed, there must be a picture of my friend, Angela Prior-Kimball, and me together, when we first knew each other at Lancaster University in the early 80s, but for a reason that has nothing to do with our friendship, I still haven't mustered the inclination to unearth them. So here we are not together, Angela having taken the second photo, of which I was completely oblivious, at the 1983 graduation ball.
On the face of it, our friendship was somewhat unlikely. Angela was ebullient, with a can-do attitude - to the last, as it turned out. She was good at tennis - her nickname at the time was Angela Prior-Lloyd-Bum (Lloyd after the then Chris Evert Lloyd) - and even then she had a fascination with fashion, and impressive boundaries. I, on the other hand, was bookish, definitely not sporty or fashionable, and riddled with insecurities.
One episode I remember - which Angela had forgotten, although she appreciated it when I told her the last time I saw her - involved a rabbit fur coat my father had given me, which had been given to him by a former client from when he'd sold insurance. Of course, I wouldn't dream of wearing fur now, but this was the winter of 1981/2 , which was so cold it has its own Wikipedia entry, and I was steadily freezing to death in the west end of Morecambe, in a mouldy attic which was painted the colour of the inside of a Ladyshave box (as another friend memorably described it), so I suppressed a vague feeling of disquiet, and wore it. Until, that is, the night I bundled it into an alcove in what was then Lonsdale College bar, only for it to be gone when I came to catch the bus back to the Battery.
Any relief I felt at not wearing rabbit skin over my own any more was swamped by anxiety at what my father might say when he found out I'd let the damn thing get stolen. I still wasn't fully reconciled to its loss when Angela turned up unexpectedly in my flat a few nights later and asked if I'd had any news of its whereabouts. I immediately launched into a description of where I'd looked, who'd been in the bar at the time, various false sightings, etc, only for her to start laughing and call me a silly moo because in my consternation, I hadn't noticed that it was draped around her shoulders. The landlord, it turned out, had put it behind the bar so that it wouldn't get nicked, but hadn't been there when I was looking for it, and had forgotten to tell me subsequently. Angela, though, like the Vintage Queen she was to become, had ferreted it out. Being a language student, I graduated a year later than Angela, in 1984, by which time she'd started her business, Heaven Vintage, and was rumoured to be managing a pop group. Within a few years I had multiple babies and she was appearing on The Clothes Show; then, by the mid 1990s, she was living in Miami and it seemed our paths had diverged for good ...
... though elsewhere, computer programmers were dreaming of a phenomenon called social media, and by 2011, we'd re-forged our connection to the point where I dedicated a poem in Communion, my first poetry collection, to her.
Even so, that might have been the extent of our rekindled friendship, were it not for a chance encounter in Stratford-upon-Avon in 2014. I was hurrying to the Royal Shakespeare Theatre to see Henry IV Part I with my partner; Angela was sitting in the sun with a friend on the corner of Sheep Street and High Street, and true to form, spotted me as I passed by, quite unaware, and shouted my name. 'I recognised you by your walk!' she declared, somewhat disconcertingly.
After that, we kept in closer touch. My last two trips to see her in Coventry came after her diagnosis of Stage 4 ovarian cancer almost exactly two years ago. The first included a visit to the Cave of Wonders that was her flat on Blondvil Street, which address suited her to the ground.
On my second visit this September we sat in the sun by the River Sherbourne at Charterhouse, watching the bees in the Himalayan Balsam and eating ice cream. Angela was as indefatigable as ever, planning a huge vintage fair to raise money for a new treatment that isn't available on the NHS. As I was hoping to go, I thought there was every chance I'd see her again, but a dose of Covid (mine) and Angela's cancer colluded, and although the fair happened in November, another visit wasn't to be.
So it goes. Solstice feels like a good time to write this. The year has turned, and we're all heading towards the light; it's just that my dear determined friend has beaten us to it.
